The American Beverage Foundation for a Healthy America and the Florida Beverage Association teamed up with the Florida Sea Grant at the University of Florida to equip local marinas with the proper tools to remove floating marine debris.

The Florida Sea Grant installs Seabins in marinas to help remove trash before they reach our oceans. The bins work as oversized vacuums that collect trash and debris without hurting animals and marine life. Bottles and cans are also collected in the bins for volunteers to pick-up every day.

Each Seabin can capture around 16,500 plastic bottles and 90,000 plastic bags a year.

Florida Beverage Association President and CEO Elizabeth DeWitt is excited by the project installation and hopes the bins will help them remove bottles from waterways. "We are trying to get those bottles to be turned into new bottles and not end up in places where they don’t belong like rivers, waterways, and oceans," DeWitt told the Coastal News.

The grant’s first Seabin was installed at the Marineland Marina in St. Augustine and is the first grant funded Seabin in Florida.

In addition to collecting up to nine pounds of trash every day, the bins also collect data on the waste that will help create education programs geared at helping consumers understand more about where their waste is going and its impact on marine life. The Sea Grant Program is currently working to determine placement for the other two Seabins funded by the grant so that they offer the best possible opportunity for research.